Abstract
Three cases of onchomycosis due to Aspergillus niger are reported. The three patients were females, 68, 72 and 56 years of age, and not immunocompromised host. The lesions were in the thumb nail in all three cases. Clinical findings in two cases showed black discoloration at the tip of the finger beneath the nail plate and distal area of the nail plate. In the other patient at first visit, the nail plate was broken by her doctor artificially. In the course of illness, onycholysis and paronychia of the thumb nail had developed in all three cases. After partial removal of the nail plate using nail-scissors in the three cases, microscopic examination of scrapings from the nail bed revealed large numbers of broard filaments terminating in spherical vesicles from which sterigmata and conidiospores extended. The conidiospores were dark brown. Materials from the nail bed in the three cases were inoculated on Sabouraud’s media. Aspergillus niger was cultured in all three cases. In one of the three cases, histological study of the removed nail revealed fungal elements in the subungual keratin layers, but none in the nail plate.
